Plenty Of Snow

So we have plenty of snow and all three dogs are out playing in it. The Lad is probably thinking this weather is the norm, so he’s in for a shock.

We have no Rushcliffe 10k of course, which has now been rescheduled for when my half in London is but at least they are offering refunds. I do have a Velodrome session tonight and which does go ahead. I meet my Dad for a pint in the Exeter afterwards but L stays at home as Doggo is struggling to get around at the moment.

He’s been spending the nights downstairs recently as the stairs are often too much for him now and I carry him up the stairs tonight then back down again when he wants to go out in the middle of the night. It’s another disturbed night for all of us as has become the norm these days.

L and I sort of look at each other when we are stood in the garden in the middle of the night in our dressing gowns as Doggo wobbles around and at times not appearing to know where he is. Is it time? I think it is.

We carry him back up stairs and heartbreakingly the Lad curls up between his paws.

(Sunday 4^th March)

The Whole Nottingham Caboodle

It’s cold and slightly icy today, so I take the bus.  

It's far too early to mention the C word but my brother does so anyway. He says he’s at his in-laws on the Fourth Sunday in December, so I shall invite my Mum and Dad round to us. L reckons we should be able to sandwich them in between Parkruns. 

Apparently there is a ******mas Eve one at Beeston, a ******mas Day one at Forest Rec, a New Year's Eve one at Rushcliffe and the Gedling-Colwick double header on New Year's Day. So that's the whole Nottingham caboodle in a week. The double header consists of one run at 9am and one at 10am with a bit of 'driving like a maniac' in between.

Now all I have to do is sort out the roast haunch of Wollaton Park deer for said Fourth Sunday.

Today isn’t apparently Black Friday but I am already getting the offers. It is actually next Friday but some companies seem to be running a Black Friday week.

After work I go to the gym at the velodrome for a quick trash on the Watt Bikes. L and the boys then walk up to meet my bus.

(Friday 18^th November)

Macabre Fascination

L is working from home again as the seamless changeover of the phone line at work hasn’t happened yet. The dogs are coping in their own separate ways. One is sprawled across the bed, the other is sulking by the door waiting for someone to chuck his ball.

If my knee ever stops hurting I will consider entering this year’s Nottingham Grand Prix series of races. Oddly it does have some sort of macabre fascination for me this year because they’ve changed the order, the 10k is now last and also because two of them aren’t at Rushcliffe.

(Thursday 5^th June)

What Is The World Coming To?

L heads off to Parkrun at Rushcliffe but gets diverted by the tram works, which are everywhere at the moment. This means she misses the run but, looking on the bright side, gets an extended bike ride.

I’m at yet another dog show at Catton Hall. I’m there both days this weekend. It doesn’t start well; Doggo misses a jump and gets five faults. What is the world coming to? I don’t know what he was playing at; it was right in front of him.

MD on the other hand is very good at missing out what is right in front of him and he’s so bloody frustrating today that I come to the conclusion that there must be better ways of spending a weekend. Actually probably hundreds of better ways of spending a weekend. He totally lacks confidence and this isn’t just in agility but with everything really. 

I task him with doing pretty much three runs back to back late morning. I don’t know if this is a good strategy to beat the heat or not. Putting him back in the car between runs two and three doesn’t seem to cool him much but it does produce our best run of the day. Today two largely rubbish jumping runs are followed by a fairly decent agility one albeit with a pole down. It is however, far too hot for all of us, so I shouldn’t be too hard on him.

My Mum and Dad turn up to watch and are surprised to find us completely done and rosette-less by lunch time. We head home, in search of some shade.

In the evening, L and I head over to Derby Beer Festival which this year is held mostly in a marquee on the market square due to the closure of the main hall at the Assembly Rooms. It’s pretty grotty in the marquee though and most of the best beer seems to be inside in the foyer or the Darwin Suite, along with much cooler temperatures, so we loiter there.

Me

‘Unknown’ Porter 5.5%

Fullers London Porter 5.4%

Fullers London Porter 5.4%

Titanic Nautical Mild 4.8%

Bartrams Conrade Bill 6.9% (Stout)

Elvedon Ported Porter 4.4%

Muirhouse Stumblin About 5.2% (Ruby)

L

Leatherbritches Game Over 5.0% (Mild)

Muirhouse Stumblin About 5.2% (Ruby)

Muirhouse Hat Trick IPA 5.2%

Titanic Nine Tenths Below 5.9% (IPA)

Navigation Abus 5.5% (IPA)

Everards Old Original 5.0%

(Saturday 13^th July)

All Out Sprint

It’s the third race of the Grand Prix series tonight, not held as usual at Bruce Wayne’s Manor, sorry I mean Wollaton Hall, but tonight at good old dependable Rushcliffe again. Where we were on Thursday for race two. This is rather unimaginative of the organisers, who had the chance to take this popular race series back to one of its old haunts, such as Forest Fields, or to a new location at one of the many parks around Nottingham. Somewhere like Bestwood would have been a good choice.

So back to those lovely gravel paths for just 5k this time. The shortest but also possibly the hardest of the four distances because for many hardy folks this is simply an all out sprint from start to finish, and if you’re like me, it’s hard not to join in.

L got the hundred miles up on Saturday, so she’s already well on the way in her quest for five hundred miles by next May and she’ll be adding another eighteen or so this week.

I start brisk-ish, avoiding the footpath wherever possible and keeping to the grass edges. One four minute km follows another and then my legs collapse. 4:08, 4:24, 4:19 I gasp across the line and land in a heap. Things are not going well at the moment.

L does better again, knocking a minute off her time from last year, whilst I add over a minute.

Back home I enter us for the all new Birmingham Half, sorry Bupa Great Birmingham Run, in the belief (probably mistaken) that I am now a long distance runner. Then I start looking at Cardiff....

(Tuesday 5th July)

Uncharacteristically Tidy

At home the walls are strangely bare. Daughter has taken all her revision notes down, which is uncharacteristically tidy of her. It’s probably just to stop me blogging about any more of them.

The annual Nottingham Grand Prix starts tonight. That’s four running races in ten days. Part one is, as ever, 10k around Holme Pierrepont Water Sports Centre, meaning we return to the scene of the crime that was the 10 miler a month or so ago.

L is so stressed that she threatens to be eating chocolate as she runs round the many loops of the rowing strip at Holme Pierrepont. I think this is work-related stress rather than race-related. That said, it’s an interesting strategy and if it works she’ll have to do it at every race. I also hope she sticks to one lap. It is only one lap tonight isn't it?

In the end she just downs a sports bar, well that’s all she admits to and then apparently regrets it, feeling full all the way around. That is all the way around in over three minutes quicker than last year. Clearly something worked. Meanwhile I plod round two minutes slower than last year. So our times are converging, at five minutes a year she’ll soon be in front of me.

I suffer badly from stitch from 3km to around 8.5km, not pleasant. I blame my pre-race snack of a flapjack, which I had at 3.30, four hours before the start. So it shouldn’t have been a problem.

Oh well, things can only get better. Ah, no they can’t, its Rushcliffe next. I hate running around Rushcliffe and they’re making us do it twice in five days this years, thanks to Batman.

(Tuesday 28th June)

The Grand Finale

Apparently the latest Batman film is to be part filmed in Wollaton Park. This I assume is why next month’s grand prix race has been moved to Rushcliffe. Although I think the organisers have been messed around by the film makers as the park will actually be open on the day of the race - July 5th but will be closed totally for nine whole days between June 25th and July 2nd. Surely they don’t need the whole park? I don’t think the council drove a very hard bargain here, particularly as the golf club appears to be unaffected and the dogs are going to livid.

I’m on the bike again which goes well until somebody bombs past me on the way home. Smart a***.

Then it’s time for the grand finale at Clifton. The final squash match before the council takes away our Thursday night game. L makes me promise not to throttle anyone at the leisure centre and to let her know if I want my tea taxied over because I’ve chained myself to something.

It turns out that there’s not much point staging a sit in because the building work has already been delayed. The closure of the courts has been deferred until Wednesday, at the earliest. We are told that we can book for next Thursday if we want, on the off chance that the courts will still be there when we turn up. We decline.

It’s a good final match, a close one and although I don’t win the match I can at least lay claim to winning the final game at Clifton.

Afterwards I have a chat with the centre manager who says they did have a display about the changes in the cafe area for a while, but we never go down that end. Although apparently retention of the squash courts was not an item that was up for discussion. It seems the argument is – if a gym isn’t used enough, we’ll expand it and modernise it to persuade people to use it, but, if squash courts aren’t used enough we’ll demolish them.

We decide we can’t be bothered with jumping through the hoops required to get into Portland next week for game, so we’re playing tennis next week. So that’s two less squash customers for the council to worry about.

L is also unhappy with the council, she swam 98 of her planned 100 lengths before she got chucked out of the pool and then found out the mocha’s gone up by 10p. That’s to pay for the new squash courts. Ha ha.

My shoulder is oddly ok after the squash game but not so ok after a training session and a lot of tugging in the garden with MD. I need a glass of wine to dull the pain.

(Thursday 9th June)

Belated Celebrations

After not the best of nights, I still manage to persuade L to let me go to today’s dog show, which is a two hour drive away in Yorkshire. Although I leave quite a bit later than planned. The 8am start at the show was inhuman anyway. The fresh air will do me good.

Meanwhile L opts to run the Rushcliffe 10K and after looking at some awkward bus routes decides to bike there, which leaves me feeling well outdone. So it had better be a successful dog show.

Hmmm. MD is hyper, way too over excited and promptly forgets all the things we’ve been working on over the winter. Many mistakes and the poles come flying down, which they haven’t been doing in training. I finally calm him down for his third run which is better but not clear. Then finally on his fourth run he goes clear. Yet he picks a course where he’s pitched against loads of dogs from a higher grade and therefore has little chance of getting a rosette. Enthused by that... we make a complete hash of his fifth and final run. All very frustrating but he looks happy with himself, he’s had a great time.

As for Doggo. Well he hobbles around the first two of his three runs; although he is clear in the second of them, it’s very slow. I realise that he’s still stiff after his football session yesterday. Maybe at his age agility and football on the same weekend isn’t a good idea. I more or less decide not to run him in his final run but then I take him for a longish walk to try and loosen him up. It works, we do the final run and he gets a rosette for 10th.

I get home and L and I at least have a few glasses of wine to belatedly celebrate our anniversary.

(Sunday 6th March)